Educational Science

'Remarkable' explosions from colliding, dead stars could reveal the true expansion rate of the universe

The collision and merger of two stellar corpses called neutron stars could help scientists unravel a long-standing mystery surrounding the expansion rate of the universe. Since the early 1900s, scientists have known that the universe is expanding. The discovery was made thanks to astronomer Edwin Hubble's observation that the more...

$100,000 Breakthrough physics prize awarded to 3 scientists who study the large scale structure of the universe

Three scientists have won $100,000 for their work on new ways to study the large-scale structure of the universe — the enormous tendrils of criss-crossing matter which hide evidence of our universe's fundamental forces. Mikhail Ivanov, of MIT, Oliver Philcox, of Columbia University and the Simons Foundation, and Marko Simonović,...

Between the smallest stars and the most massive planets, a strange class of celestial objects pervades the universe. Called brown dwarfs, or failed stars, these liminal objects are more massive than gas giants such as Jupiter but less massive than the smallest stars. They're also really common: Astronomers recently discovered...

Nuclear 'pasta' cooked up by dead stars could unravel the secrets of stellar afterlife

Imagine cooking pasta at a temperature of over a trillion degrees. But this isn't just any ordinary Sunday-night dish; it's the nuclear pasta found inside neutron stars. Researchers have just revealed that these strange nuclear shapes penetrate far deeper into the cores of neutron stars than we ever thought possible,...

Hundreds of 'ghost stars' haunt the Milky Way's center. Scientists may finally know why.

A mysterious alignment of stellar ghosts from dead stars haunts the heart of the Milky Way, and scientists may finally know why. These cosmic specters exist in the form of planetary nebulas, clouds of gas that are expelled by dying stars at the end of their lives. These can resemble...

'Wrinkle in space-time' enables James Webb to capture stunning image of most distant star ever detected

In March 2022, the Hubble Space Telescope detected the most distant star ever seen in the cosmos. Now, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured an even more detailed glimpse of this ancient celestial body, revealing it to be a massive B-type star that's more than twice as hot...

The Milky Way wasn't always a spiral —and astronomers may finally know why it 'shape-shifted'

A 100-year-old mystery surrounding the shape-shifting nature of some galaxies has been solved, revealing in the process that our Milky Way galaxy did not always possess its familiar spiral appearance. Astronomer Alister Graham used old and new observations to show how the evolution of galaxies from one shape to another...

Ancient supernova in James Webb telescope image could help solve one of the universe's biggest mysteries

A rare, warped supernova that appears three times in a single image could help researchers finally solve a long-standing inconsistency about the universe that has threatened to unravel our understanding of the cosmos, one expert claims. The type 1a supernova, named SN H0pe, was first discovered lurking in photographs captured...

13 billion-year-old 'Maisie's galaxy' is one of the oldest objects in the universe, James Webb telescope reveals

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have confirmed that a distant smudge of light named for a lucky birthday girl on Earth is one of the earliest known galaxies in the universe. The object — named Maisie's galaxy in honor of lead researcher Steven Finkelstein's daughter, who was...

Largest-ever simulation of the universe reveals 'shortcomings' in standard model of cosmology

We see countless stars and galaxies sparkling in the universe today, but how much matter is actually there? The question is simple enough — its answer, however, is turning out to be quite a head-scratcher. This dilemma exists largely because current cosmological observations simply disagree on how matter is distributed...